


Mr Drawlight's Clever Plan

by AlexSimon



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 05:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4734284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSimon/pseuds/AlexSimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr Drawlight is asked by his friend Mr Lascelles to help him take care of a problem and in doing so, hatches a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mr Drawlight's Clever Plan

**Author's Note:**

> For those who have only seen the TV show: Mrs Bullworth (the woman who Drawlight pretends to be selling Jonathan Strange's magical services to for revenge on her family) is revealed in that scene in the book to be a ruined woman who had an affair with Henry Lascelles. He is on her list of people Strange is meant to be getting revenge on for her.

Henry Lascelles regretted nearly immediately his course of action with Maria Bullworth. Perhaps immediately is inaccurate, since it was in truth nearly fourteen hours, from approximately 7:00 one evening to 9:00 the following morning, before he admitted to himself that this simply would not do at all. 

In honesty, he had never expected that she would really leave her husband when he began this and he was quite stuck as to what to do with the woman now that she was here. He had never expected her to arrive at his door suddenly with her cheeks flushed telling him that it was done, she had left, she was his. He had never expected her to consent so freely to staying with him that very evening. 

But then she had done all of those things and now, she was sitting in his drawing room over breakfast looking far too excited about their future, of which there could be none, that much was sure. 

Stolen kisses, fervently written letters, and heated promises were one thing, but a married woman having breakfast at his table alone first thing in the morning was rather another. Her hair and clothes were not even fixed properly since the only maid was a household girl and not a lady's maid and knew nothing of dressing or styling and had been hardly able to look at her employer or Mrs Bullworth when she was asked to attend to her. The entire situation was becoming more of an embarrassment by the moment.

He really stopped listening the moment Mrs Bullworth started talking about sailing together to America, of all places. To be sure there was no one they would know there, but there wasn't much of anyone of consequence in America at all and very few comforts. She could hardly expect him to live in some desolate dirt floor cabin chopping wood and raising small Americans, but that seemed to be exactly what she wanted and wanted very much by the almost girlish, silly look on her face. 

She took his hand across the table and he jerked back quickly even though they were alone but for the rather sensible maid, who was staring at the floor and still trying very hard not to notice Mrs Bullworth at all. Maria Bullworth studied Mr Lascelles’ perturbed grimace, then frowned at her lonely hand sitting next to the pot of marmalade and then back at her beloved. 

"Henry, darling-" she started to say.

Even the maid could not pretend not to have heard this and she blushed. Henry Lascelles excused himself from the table at that moment and left in haste without looking back at the abandoned breakfast scene. He really did not want at all to see what lovesick look was on the woman’s face. As Mr Lascelles exited his accommodations, he was determined to solve this problem before the day had passed. 

Henry Lascelles collected his friend Mr Drawlight and charged to him the task of removing Maria Bullworth from his home before the evening, when he would return and expect to find his accommodations free of other people's wives. 

"Henry, what were you thinking?" asked Mr Drawlight, not without amusement, as they rode through town in the carriage to Mr Lascelles' destination.

"I?" asked Mr Lascelles. Unlike his friend, he was not amused. He adjusted his gloves with some agitation and then crossed his arms. "I am not married. I may do as I please."

Mr Drawlight just managed to keep himself from raising an eyebrow. 

"Where shall she go?" He asked instead. 

"If she is lucky, back to her home."

"If she is not?"

"You will know what to do, I am sure."

Mr Drawlight sighed. He did not relish being asked to do these kinds of tasks nor did he wish for a morning away from Hanover Square, but he would do what he was asked. If nothing else, it would prove an opportunity to witness the scene his friend had described leaving behind and that Mr Drawlight very much wanted to see. Mr Lascelles departed and the coach returned his friend to Mr Lascelles' address. 

To Maria Bullworth's credit, she was unsurprised when Mr Drawlight arrived in her beloved Henry's place and discerned immediately the meaning of his absence and this strange man’s presence. She sighed deeply but she did not cry. Mr Drawlight was glad of it. 

He had tea brought for them and sat with her as he introduced himself as a friend of Mr Lascelles’ here to speak to her about some delicate business. He sneakily admired some of the new furniture in the room as he did and did a quick inspection for any possible signs of adultery around the place. 

"So this is it. I am cast off,” Mrs Bullworth said, taking a cup of tea from her new acquaintance. 

"I cannot disguise the situation, madam. Mr Lascelles does not wish to continue the affair."

The woman who was very urgently processing the information that she would never be Mrs Lascelles gripped her teacup and her face puckered. 

"He is a coward," said Mrs Bullworth with such force that the maid backed away from her chair, behind which she had been discreetly standing. "To promise all he did and then send you to pack me away while he hides his face. Do you even know what he has said to me when we are alone? Do you know what I have given for those promises?"

"I can imagine," said Mr Drawlight. The room got quiet and Mr Drawlight noticed the prominent ticking of a new and fashionable clock in the corner. 

"What shall I do?" asked Mrs. Bullworth. For the first time, her voice became rather soft and scared. This was the part that Mr Drawlight did not like and he hoped sincerely that she would keep her composure as she had to this point. 

"Is there any chance of concealing the true nature of your absence from your husband's home? Could you be visiting a relative, perhaps? And forgotten to have mentioned your trip?" 

"I am afraid I wrote rather a long letter to my husband that he's sure to have read by now. I outlined his many faults and expressed my poor luck at ever having married him."  
Mrs. Bullworth paused. "And I left second for my mother-in-law, quite similar in nature.”

"I see" said Mr Drawlight. He spent a moment in thought and took a sip of his tea to keep from tittering as something occurred to him. He straightened his face as best he could before speaking again. “Did you mention your new lover by name in these letters, by chance? I feel we must warn Mr Lascelles if you have.” 

Maria Bullworth shook her head and Mr Drawlight’s fleeting thoughts of duels dissolved with a pout. He took careful inspection of the woman in front of him now. Really, he could not fathom Henry at all. She was a nice looking woman to be sure, but hardly inspiring of this sort of trouble. She was not even particularly young. But then again, he thought, she had undoubtedly looked nicer upon her arrival the evening before and in all of those dark corners where they had been kissing. 

"Mrs. Bullworth,” he said at last. “You will have to return to your home and see what awaits you there. It is our first course of action. But you must not do this in your current state. As there is no one here able to prepare your toilet, I will need to find someone before we proceed.”

Mr Drawlight left and an hour later returned with a skinny and flimsily dressed young woman who was able to fix rather competently the hair and clothes of Mrs Bullworth. At Mr Drawlight’s subtle hint, the girl was slipped a small sum of money for her troubles before being escorted out. 

"She is skillful," said Mrs. Bullworth, inspecting her hair and her dress when the woman was gone. "Who is she?"

"Another unfortunate woman, Mrs. Bullworth. It seems very easy to be one of those."

Things were much simpler after that. Mrs Bullworth had had no time to remove from her small bag the few belongings she had brought with her to begin her life with Henry Lascelles. It was simply a matter of closing the clasp on the bag again and picking it back up and Maria Bullworth was all but erased from the rooms she had only last night thought to call her new home. 

As he was told to do, Mr Drawlight summoned a coach for hire for them when she was ready and proceeded to see her back to her home where he would wait to see if she was accepted. As they rode, Mrs Bullworth watched her new companion.

"Mr Drawlight,” she said. “I feel that one way or the other that I am ruined."

:"Please, don't worry quite yet. With the right words, your husband may be persuaded."

"No, no," she said, raising her chin. "It is the truth. Even home will hold no comfort for me after today. But you have helped." 

"I have tried. You are presentable again anyway."

"You do not balk at unpleasant tasks."

"Many of them I do,” he said with a small smile. “But some are suited well to me." 

"What of revenge. Mr Drawlight?” asked Mrs Bullworth. “How are you suited to that? If I asked for your help to right the wrongs done to me, could you? Would you know whom I may ask?"

Mr Drawlight leaned back in his seat. He and Mrs Bullworth regarded each other.

“I will pay, she said. "As much as I am able. If I am to go home, my life there will not be worth thinking of. If I am not, it will be the same. All the while Mr Lascelles will sleep peacefully tonight with no thought to me and will wake tomorrow morning with a life quite unchanged. All the while, my husband will continue to be a neglectful boor and his mother a tyrant. It would be bearable if I knew I had some power, some recourse."

"Madam," said Mr Drawlight slowly. He folded his hands in front of him. "I can ensure, if you are able to afford him that is, the help of someone very powerful indeed, someone very nearly singularly equipped to assist you as you ask. Someone with remedies to your problems you have not even dreamed of.”

For the first time, Mr Drawlight saw her smile.


End file.
